So soon as the sound of their footsteps had ceased, Cuthbert descended or rather slid down the hill into the road beneath, behind the men, and in spite of his fatigue, walked rapidly back towards Bovey.
Soon he came to the junction of two roads—the one, the upper way, leading through the pass and so to Chagford, and by a circuitous route to Moreton; the other a branch road which led more directly to the latter town, which the traveller had abandoned: to take, for his own reasons, a more circuitous and difficult route under a treacherous guide.
At the point where the ways met Cuthbert waited, and shortly heard the sound of horses; he then beheld the riders—the one a tall dark looking man, evidently of rank and importance, the other a sort of stable helper from the inn at Bovey.
“Stand,” cried Cuthbert, “I would fain speak with you, sir.”
“Who is this, who cries ‘stand’ upon the King’s highway?”
“A friend, one who would save you, Sir John, if you be Sir John; danger lurks ahead; three cut-throats, ‘Gubbings,’ they call them about here, a half-gipsy brood, lie in wait at the pass, and lurk for your life.”
“How sayest thou, my lad? Look, sirrah, what sayest thou to this?”
But the treacherous groom had heard all, and rode on at full gallop, barely escaping a pistol-shot his indignant employer sent after him.
“He will bring them back in no time: take the lower road.”
“And thou, my poor lad, they will avenge themselves on thee.”